The walls felt like they were closing. It was as if I had come from a mountain-top experience….to swoop low, hollow, walking unexpectedly out of the rivers of freedom.
And it was dark, really dark.
The people I thought might have been there were gone. And sometimes you don’t really know what 
you have until the storms come…and wash the plastic away.
My faith started shrinking. My hope kept grabbing to The Black Book promising me….Jesus let’s even His chosen suffer difficulties.
It was a season of believing when I couldn’t see, gripping to what He had taught me previously. It was a time of waking, lifting my head up intentionally….even when I felt like shrinking, crawling, and never getting into the game of life. Ever. ever. again.
And during this season, I had to let scripture, not some one else’s teaching, tell me who my God was.
It was during this hardship, I washed away my theological understanding….and asked God to reveal Himself….not to some pastor, not to some prophet, not to some holy person I found in a church or on the internet….
But to let the God of all creation do what scripture teaches…allowing us past the veil, into the Holy of Holies, actually speak with us, as more than a rule-keeper, but a friend?
“My sheep hear my voice”, scripture tells us. And it is the truth of this whisper that obliterated lie after lie, God shattering the mirror of adversity I had been unknowingly reflecting.
Unintentionally, when trails or adversity come, we can use them as our mirror. Then, after awhile we can start assuming what has happening is now somehow part of us, what difficulties we are looking at can slowly become our reflection….instead of us trusting what God has declared about us in scripture; Holy, blessed, chosen.
Day by day, often sleepless nights, I refused to live with the lie of what I saw around me; opening my Bible…not because I wanted to, not because I even felt like it….but because I had to. He was all I had.
And like the faithful God whose love is endless….He revealed Himself, His character, the truth of our trials as scripture tells us…
- Daniel’s enemies plot and plan to throw him into the lion’s den
- Joseph’s brothers lie and manipulate, casting him away from their presence into a well, then sell him off to Egypt.
- Haman plots and plans to kill Esther and her people, ridding the world from Jews forever…
- Jesus endured the cross, was crucified by the very ones who had hailed and paraded him with palms a few days earlier.
And I think when the trails of adversity come, how we can shrink back, give up, or hide, make excuses, justify that life is just hard, and let our situations become the mirror of who we are…instead of letting scripture infuse our hearts with hope.
Still, Jesus died and resurrected so that we might shatter our mirrors. No, not making every difficulty disappear, but so that we might rise up and declare victory over what we are experiencing….even when life seems hard.
Didn’t He shed His blood so that we might still declare Him good, even when what we see is not yet reflected before our physical eyes? Rising so that we might praise Him in every circumstances…Not letting the enemy try to fool us into thinking, our lives will simply always be dark, fooling us into thinking…our situations are us?
Because aren’t we Jesus’….not the result of someone else’s mistake or circumstance?
Didn’t He die so that we might rise high and see our adversity with new eyes….
- Eyes reflecting His glory
- Eyes of hope
- Eyes carrying the Light of the One who defeated death and the curse of the grave.
Didn’t He shed His blood that we might lay our trials, our pain, our every hurt, lowly, at His feet…instead of carrying our pain, somehow deceived into thinking, our suffering is somehow who we are when we look in the mirror?
Scripture tells us we can take off our robes of old, our filthy rags, letting Him give us white robes of righteousness…
Yet, adversity can fool us into thinking…we should just be content carrying around sin’s filth, other’s pain, the turmoil of persecution that comes when we are Christians. When reality is, Jesus died to set us free.
I often find it interesting that Daniel went into the Lion’s den willingly. Don’t you?
Scripture implies that He wasn’t dragged, He wasn’t forced, He wasn’t belittled….but actually walked confidently, with 
the King of all the Kingdom’s faithfully by His side..into the den.
- And I wonder sometimes if we forget that….”The King is on our side”?
- Do we forget that Jesus also interceded for us when we are in the proximity of the Lion’s sharp teeth, clenched jaws, and sharp claws?
- Can we forget that we are like Daniel sometimes….surrounded by adversity, surrounded by a devouring lion, in the midst of a den of thieves, liars, and betrayers who want to consume us at all cost?
- Do we forget a great cloud of witnesses are watching us? His light is still shining? Jesus’ sends heavenly ones to protect us from being touched by the schemes and threats of the evil that resides here in our lion’s den?
So today…
- Can we step out of the den we are in..turn our eyes from the false mirror’s of adversity we are seeing?
- Can we stop dressing up in our circumstances?
- Will we choose to enter the peace that comes when we stop staring at the mirrors of our difficulties?
- Can we pray fervently when the lion’s surround us?
- Will we choose to trust, an invisible wall separates us from the King of King and Lord of Lords?
- Can we start believing, our King, like King Darius, never sleeps and never slumbers?
- Truly understanding, our greatest advocate waits for us to enter His presence with hope and joy, faith, and the power of our testimonies.
- Will you join me today friends, in shattering your mirrors of adversity?
- Will you pick up the Word and declare what God says about you…instead of what others might claim who you are?
- Will we start believing…We are more than conquerors?
- Though we face many trials, will we trust, our God is with us, the Lord knows how to rescue us from our trails?
- Will we take off our filthy rags and walk not reflecting our circumstance, but His robes of righteousness?
- Will we trust His light truly shines in darkness? Our faith truly can rise in murky circumstances?
Will we pick up scripture and let it reflect what God alone says about us…
Isn’t it time we take the hammer and shatter the lies….letting our mirrors reflect not our trials; but instead, being ourselves, the reflection of Christ?
** ACTION CHALLENGE: Will you write a list of all the trials, hurts, pains, and difficulties you have been believing are part of your identity and will never go away? Then, will you take a match and torch that list? Declaring to the heavens what scripture truly says about us, as Christians…holy, loved, cherished, treasured, chosen, vessels, masterpieces, adopted, unique, conquerors…children of our God.
